TV veterans Peter Fincham and Jon Plowman talk to the writers, producers, and performers behind Britain’s biggest TV comedy hits, and hear the inside story of how they brought their programmes to the screen.
The TV comedies covered are:
The Vicar of Dibley
The Thick Of It
Absolutely Fabulous
Blackadder
Goodness Gracious Me
W1A
The Office
Have I Got News For You
Smack The Pony
Not The Nine O'Clock News
Fawlty Towers
The Good Life
Catastrophe
The Fast Show
One Foot in the Grave
Green Wing
Derry Girls
Alas Smith and Jones
With Peter and Jon as our guides, they take the opportunity to ask quite how our guests went about making a great bit of TV comedy. Who came up with it? How did it get written? They talk about the commissioning, the casting, and the reception the show received when it first aired.
They do their very best to winkle out some backstage secrets straight from the horse’s mouth, as we hear the unvarnished truth from the people who were there, and who put these iconic shows on TV.
Producer: Owen Braben
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra in March 2020
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